Two books about wildness, cages, and freedom. One replaces the box with a different box. The other says the butterfly blueprint is already inside you. Purple nail polish, six-foot waves, and the case for living as your whole self.

My wife Becca and I were watching the sun set. Not walking, not talking. Just sitting. Two minutes before it dipped, the cicadas came on. She said, “The cicadas are singing the sun to sleep.” That line opened something I’m still exploring.

It was our last week in Costa Rica. My wife and I were watching the sunset when she challenged something I said about fear. What surprised me was how quickly the dance between love and fear came to life in my own words.

I met a free horse on the beach in Costa Rica. Not tied up. Not behind a fence. Just free. What happened next, and the connections that followed, reminded me that sometimes the best mornings aren't the ones you plan.

223 days ago I launched the Heart-Strong Adventure. One post. One question. One year to follow it. A lot has happened since then. The adventure isn't ending. It's evolving.

Last year I took energy from Costa Rica and brought it home. The flow only went one way. This year I wanted to leave something behind. What happened when I did surprised me.

In Costa Rica, I saw both ends of the surfing spectrum up close. One surfer led with love. The other led with fear. What I noticed had very little to do with surfing.

I've been around water my whole life. This year in Costa Rica, my relationship with surfing changed. It stopped being about catching waves and became something I can only describe as wholeness.

I gave up a table at a coffee shop in Rockledge, Florida. That small choice led to a three-hour conversation about God, fear, love, and choice with three strangers who became friends.

When I left my job at 29 to start a company, the fear that almost kept me from making the leap wasn't failure. It was losing my health insurance. How much creativity and love never enters the world because of a fear-based system?

I emailed Matthew McConaughey. Yes, that Matthew McConaughey. And no, he hasn't responded. But the story of why I sent it is really about what happens when love overrides the fear of looking ridiculous.

A couple months ago I got a text from my friend Sam Harris. It was a simple yes or no question: "Have you ever been inside a prison?" I hadn't. And the fact that I hadn't felt significant.

Every Saturday morning I go to Reverie. It's a coffee shop in Brunswick, Maine. It's my anchor. But Reverie is more than a coffee shop. It's what sociologists call a third place.

I was standing in the cold at a tree lighting ceremony, watching hundreds of people do the same thing, and I kept asking myself: what are we actually doing here?

Thanksgiving is a complicated day. It carries real gratitude and real harm in the same breath. A celebration of abundance built on a story that erases Indigenous suffering. I'm learning to hold both.

I met a man at an AMVETS Hall who changed how I think about mortality. He wasn't a veteran. He was a guest, like me. And he was dying. He didn't lead with that. He led with survival kits.

I recently read 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom. What caught me wasn't the framework. It was what it revealed about my own patterns. Specifically, my relationship with time wealth and the word yes.

My dad and I were wrestling with a stuck window on the house I grew up in. Under his frustration I could hear the fear. He knows time is real. The project looked like it was stealing his freedom.

My dad and I were up on staging replacing windows when a deer family walked out into the garden. It was the first day of hunting season. What followed was a lesson in death, gratitude, and connection.

This past Friday I was off. I knew it while it was happening and I still kept showing up. What I've been learning is that being off isn't the problem. Not noticing it is.